This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Cox, L. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

The Antipodean social laboratory, labour and the transformation of the welfare state

Macquarie University and La Trobe University

The Australian and New Zealand welfare states have undergone dramatic transformations since the early 1980s. This has led some commentators to redeploy the ‘social laboratory’ metaphor widely used to describe Australasia at the turn of the 19th century. This article analyses the disjunctures in Australia’s and New Zealand’s experience of transforming the welfare state, and seeks to account for them. Drawing inspiration from comparative political sociology, it suggests that the differences can be explained with reference to variations in the political-economic starting point of transformation, variations in the institutional context of political decision-making, and variations in the balance of social and political power in the two countries

Key Words: Antipodes • labour • neo-liberalism • political sociology • social laboratory • welfare state

Journal of Sociology, Vol. 42, No. 2, 107-124 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1440783306064941


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?